Rafat, left, and Zooren Ansari, both medical doctors, have announced a $15 million gift to the University of Notre Dame to create the Rafat and Zorren Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion. Photo provided
Rafat, left, and Zooren Ansari, both medical doctors, have announced a $15 million gift to the University of Notre Dame to create the Rafat and Zorren Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion. Photo provided
SOUTH BEND — A Granger couple has made a $15 million gift to the University of Notre Dame to create an institute focused on the study of religion.

Drs. Rafat and Zoreen Ansari and their adult children are providing the gift to create the Rafat and Zoreen Ansari Institute for Global Engagement With Religion. 

The institute, which will be part of the university's Keough School of Global Affairs (which will open this year), will study how religious teachings, traditions, history, practice and thought inform the rapidly shifting patterns of global migration, conflict and peacebuilding, political culture and human development.

The couple, both medical doctors from Pakistan, are also Muslim. 

Dr. Rafat Ansari is a local oncologist. Dr. Zoreen Ansari is a family medicine physician.

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